Indautxu Square

Before this project the Indautxu Square was a deprived space that the residents avoided, split by a vehicular road. It was necessary to replace vehicles with pedestrians as the centre of the proposal, so two of the three roads that crossed the square were removed, leaving the other only for public transport.

We wanted the square to present two kinds of spaces: the main one for social events, fairs, dances and exhibitions… and the other one surrounding the first, for walking, reading: a peaceful space.

The social space is a big central circle with a diameter of 40 meters. This circle would be used to celebrate fairs of the arts, of books, of local gastronomical products… To support all of these activities we built a translucent glass and wooden canopy more than four meters wide which goes along the entire perimeter of the large circle.

The remaining space between the perimeter of the plaza and the central circle would become a peaceful space. We created circular gardens of different diameters with a tree in their centre and sprinkled throughout the square. Between them there are many picturesque paths that allow those passing through to cross the square in any direction.

Deciduous trees are placed surrounding the big central circle: maple and liquidambar; there is a second ring of birches, thuya and yew trees, and parrotia persica and different perennial bushy species in the rest of the square.

For the lighting three different sizes of lamps were created: 10, 8 and 6 metres high. The order of these lamps follows a common pattern with the trees: the first ring around the circle includes the tallest lamps. The second ring includes 8m high lamps; and the third ring includes the 6m high ones.